The Nude Party
The Nude Party
New West
Every comic book hero and every band has an origin story. Some stories are better than others. The Nude Party has a good one. The guys come together while students at Appalachian State University in rural Boone, North Carolina. The guys took up residence in a house out by a lake where they learned how to play their instruments. As the guys got better, they started playing parties where they liked to play nude. Before long, the folks coming to the parties were getting naked too. Before they ever performed in a “professional” venue, the guys were known around Boone as “the naked party band.” When things got a bit more formal, they just went with The Nude Party as their official name. (Of course, venues with liquor licenses to protect discourage naked stage shenanigans).
Sonically, The Nude Party sound like they could have taken over for the Velvet Underground as Andy Warhol’s house band after the VU split. The songs are about contemporary concerns, but filtered through the deep, underground murk of early ’70s/late ’60s sounds. “Feels Alright” sounds like the Modern Lovers back when Jerry Harrison was in the band and John Cale was working on their demos. “Paper Trail (Money)” has the cheap organ leads of ? and the Mysterians. The Dylanesque tune, “War Is Coming”, sounds like a throwback to the protest songs of the ’60s, but… wait a minute, … war has been coming for your sons for the past 17 years (just without a draft).
The single from the album, or at least the song that got a video made is “Chevrolet Van”. The song sounds a bit like Exile on Main Street-Stones. The woozy country blues takes on all the well meaning people advising them not to bother making music. On the chorus they sing, “you’ll never make enough money and no one cares about the things you say. You’re gonna wake up some day and wish you got a job.” It’s the sort of sound advice that every successful musician (and a lot of unsuccessful ones) has ignored over the years.
I can’t see the future, so I don’t know if the guys in The Nude Party should keep their resumes up to date. It sounds like they’re having fun roaming the country in that Chevy van and I suspect they’re fun to see live (even if everyone keeps their trousers on).
